On the wings of a song

Shantanu Moitra

With the success of Parineeta's music, the Indian film industry opens its doors to welcome music director Shantanu Moitra.

He has "travelled in time, spent a month in the '60s and come back feeling enrich-ed". For Shantanu Moitra, music director of the much-acclaimed film Parineeta, it was precisely this feeling he experienced while composing songs for the film.

What took him so long to break into the Indian film industry? "I don't live for music alone. I have other interests as well," Moitra tells us. Isn't this an unusual statement from someone belonging to the tribe of "we-eat-sleep-drink music"? Moitra chuckles.

"Oh, if that's the kind of quote you're looking for, you won't get any." He says he's a "sponge that absorbs experiences that come his way". A trekking enthusiast, Moitra heads out for these fascinating journeys whenever he can.

He now wants to experience the art of film-making and that's why he will double up not only as the music director but also as associate director to assist Vidhu Vinod Chopra "" who produced Parineeta "" for his forthcoming venture Yagna. "You need to have other interests in life if you really want to breathe."

Which is why, beyond a point he can't imagine himself sitting and jamming with the same set of musicians night after night.

"You can't," he says, "cut off completely from the world, sit in home studios and come up with brilliant scores. You need to interact, move out and be in the midst of a wide range of people who can share opinions and tell you what exactly they think of your work."

A lot of what Moitra shares with us could have stemmed from what he saw in his growing years in New Delhi's C R Park area. Coming from a family of musicians "" his uncles specialise in playing the sarod in Benaras "" he was "discouraged strongly" from pursuing music as a career.

"Music is in my genes but my family had seen far too many hardships to let me venture into it too," His musical leanings were fuelled in CR Park, his "creative ground" where he composed music and formed a band that performed during Durga Pujas and heard the music of Salil Chowdhury, S D Burman and Illayaraja.

Professionally, he worked as a client-servicing executive with the ad agency Contract.

It was here that Moitra first met Pradeep Sarkar "" the director of Parineeta who, till then, was making ads and doing music videos. "He had a frown on his face," remembers Moitra, because someone who was supposed to compose a tune had failed to turn up on time for the meeting.

Moitra ended up composing that jingle. The result was one of the best remembered ad jingles, "Bole mere lips, I love Uncle Chipps."

Thus began a partnership of sorts between Sarkar and Moitra and the duo gradually began churning out hits with not just ad jingles but also non-film music albums such as Ab Ke Saawan and Mann Ke Manjeere (both sung by Shubha Mudgal).

"We created and reversed a trend at the same time," says Moitra, who reveals that "a lot of creative work started coming to Delhi instead of Mumbai, where it usually happened".

Delhi, in his view, "saw a creative high those days and some of us were instrumental in breaking the myth that creative work only happened in Mumbai".

Then why did he ditch Delhi and C R Park, his "creative source of energy", for the madness of Mumbai? Moitra explains his move: "I still miss Delhi. Mumbai lacks space and, at times, I feel claustrophobic. Delhi still is the reservoir of talent. Bands like Silk Route, Euphoria and artistes like Rabbi are from Delhi and doing well. But what the place lacks is technical expertise."

He feels that despite a full-fledged film city in Noida and a surge of news channels in the city, Delhi lacks the technical know-how of things that are in abundance in both Mumbai and Chennai.

"Kolkata," he feels, "was lagging behind but even they've smartened up and the music circuit in technical aspects is getting better there."

While he composed haunting melodies in Sudhir Mishra's critically acclaimed Hazaaron Khwaishein Aisi, it was really with Parineeta that he hit the jackpot in terms of what one calls "commercial success".

Moitra feels his travelling "" for instance, a trip to Kazakhstan where he heard "folk music from nearly 32 countries" that influenced him to create Ab Ke Saawan"" contributes to his music.

For Parineeta he composed songs "" each took nearly eight-nine hours for dubbing alone "" without thinking of the market. Two of the songs are still lying in the cans.

Up next are two projects from the house of Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Munnabhai Meets The Mahatma and Yagna. Yahaan, a film by Shoojit Sarkar, has just been released with Moitra giving the musical score. "Things are getting better," he smiles.

To which we say, Amen.